Seattle Theatre is Big Winner in New Gypsy Rose Lee Awards

The weakness of Seattle theatre, if you ask me, is mainly that not enough people know about the extent of it, and how good and varied it is. In large part, you can correlate the size of a theatre’s audience with its marketing budget. It’s not easy to get a glimpse of Seattle theatre as a whole, then, just in media-parceled pieces as we crank out a review of this or that show.

That’s why I was excited to participate in the brainchild of Seattle Theater Writers founder, Miryam Gordon, the Gypsy Rose Lee Awards.

It’s not that there aren’t drama awards in Seattle–there are Misha Berson’s Footlight Awards in the Seattle Times, and the Gregory Awards, voted on by members of Theatre Puget Sound, but Seattle was missing a Drama-Desk-y entry, one that captured more of the passionately critical embrace in which theatre and reviewers are locked.

So Seattle Theater Writers, uniting 11 local theater writers and reviewers, goes a long way to generating a critical consensus (or something sufficient) for the year in review, and also for productions across the Equity (actors’ union) and non-Equity spectrum. Following are the 2011 winners of the first annual Gypsy Rose Lee Awards, 2011 also marking the centennial year of the entertainer’s birth in Seattle, just FYI.

It wasn’t easy, and I wish there were a convenient way to let you in on the reams of emailed backroom debate. I’ll quote Miryam on the epic battles and compromises:

Determining winners for the Gypsys was a difficult process. We had over 460 nominees across 32 categories and had to make some tough choices. This demonstrates the enormous variety of excellent theatrical performances last year in Seattle, as well as the variety of opinions from our writers!

And now…the envelopes, please:

Excellence in Production of a Play: Equity: The Brothers Size (Seattle Repertory Theatre). Also recognized: O Lovely Glowworm (Or Scenes of Great Beauty) (New Century Theatre Company). Non-Equity: Sick (New City Theater). Also recognized: Live from the Last Night of My Life (Theater Schmeater).

Excellence in Performance as an Ensemble: Equity: Cast of The Brothers Size (Seattle Repertory Theatre). Non-Equity: Cast of Brownie Points (Taproot Theatre Company). Also recognized: Cast of A Lie of the Mind (Collektor).